thinking

[ewt]

I wonder what sort of subscription service I could hang off the website.... something for £2-4-ish/month. Possibly access to higher-quality MP3 files? Possibly getting rid of some sort of download limit?

Is this a terrible, doomed idea, or a quite good one?

I don't want to bug everyone to sign up for premium service all the time, because, hey, sucks. I don't want a huge gulf between the free services and the paid-for-services - everything we sell has to be free in some format and should be easily accessible. However, as the site gains popularity, having some kind of subscription service might be an easy way to gain revenue for the artists and make sure our costs are covered.

I need to think about money transfer and how that is going to work, too. PayPal? WorldPay? Something else? Why? If we do something by subscription, will that be the same or can people use a Standing Order if they're in the UK?

Comments

[qadira.livejournal.com]

short on time today so haven't read any other comments. perhaps a paid subscription could include "x" number of printed-on-nice-paper score/actual CDs a month.

(as a matter of personal preferences, I like the pay-per-item services better, rather than the ones that have a monthly subscription fee. If you go with the monthly fee, it would be worth considering to allow someone's unused credits from each month roll over to the following months. The lack of that roll-over feature is why I don't subscribe to emusic.com )

Husband was asking me how your project is different from the existing creative commons site; and I attempted to explain to a computer guy how your project is for *musicians* and not in general the end *music-consumer*. At least, that's how I am understanding Mammoth Project? That it's a resource for musicians to be able to swap beyond the usual more limited boundaries?

Anyhow, nothing was ever built without someone trying; and even if it doesn't do very well, it doesn't change the fact that you need to do a project for your coursework. But, having been a musician at one time myself, and knowing many musicians, I think you've hit on something that is doable. I would have *killed* for a site like what you're brainstorming, but in 1989 people still had very limited internet options, and it wasn't anything like it is today.

From my waaaaay outside perspective, it looks like you're getting loads and loads of the brainstorming phase/input-feedback done, which is good. More than good. Funding type phases take more physical running-about to accomplish, but it's this first stage of dream-analysis-PLN that is imho the freakin' nightmare part.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Existing creative commons site provides a sample legal framework and appropriate documents, but doesn't really provide one place for people to distribute their music and listen to music. It links to some CC projects but not all of them. For many musicians, maintaining a website with their current work is a bit much, and even for those who do this easily, just having a website doesn't really get your name out there or get people listening to your music.

Credit rollover is a very good point and I will think about how this might be implemented.